I am Campaigns and Networking Coordinator at Baby Milk Action, which monitors the baby food industry. Our aim is to protect breastfeeding and babies fed on formula from practices that put profits before health. This is a daily look behind the scenes of the work of Baby Milk Action, including the boycott of Nestlé (the worst of the baby food companies), which we promote in the UK. See the Baby Milk Action website if you are unfamiliar with our work.

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Looking back on 2008 and forward to 2009

And so here we are in 2009 and it's time to fire up this blog after a bit of a New Year break.

Last year was as eventful as ever and sets the scene for what is to come. 2008 opened with us going to the High Court in London to help the UK government in defending the new Infant Formula and Follow-on Formula Regulations. Though we disliked the regulations for being little better than those they replaced, the baby food industry was trying to undermine them further and ultimately succeeded in doing so, winning a delay in labeling requirements. Our position had been company's labels are currently illegal, so they should be withdrawn in any case.http://boycottnestle.blogspot.com/2008/02/uk-court-case-over.html

In May we began producing regular monitoring reports to submit to the government review panel investigating the effectiveness of the law. The reports profile the main companies, expose practices that we believe violate the regulations and explain what enforcement authorities have - or have not - done to hold them to account.http://www.babyfeedinglawgroup.org.uk/monitoring.html

We are grateful for the public donations that go towards the monitoring project, as we have no other funding for it, essential though it is. The monitoring evidence was submitted to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child which, in October, called for the UK government to implement the International Code of Marketing of Breastmilk Substitutes and commented in its report on the UK that: "aggressive promotion of breastmilk substitutes remains common."http://boycottnestle.blogspot.com/2008/10/crc-condemns-uk.html

In the wider world, we saw a UK Member of Parliament defending Nestlé after an all-expenses-paid trip to South Africa. Tom Levitt MP attacked the boycott, claiming Nestlé misbehaviour was decades in the past. We contacted him regarding the malpractice he missed while on his jolly to South Africa, including advertising of infant formula in supermarkets and prohibited health claims on labels. These strategies were not only criticised by the Department of Health, but Nestlé competitors reported it to the Advertising Standards Authority in a ultimately unsuccessful attempt at stopping what they saw as a clear breach of the marketing requirements. So Nestlé endangers infant health to boost its profits, while driving down standards for the industry as a whole. It is shameful that a Member of the UK Parliament supports them in this. While we have provided information to Mr. Levitt MP and requested a meeting, we have still not received a reply from him.http://boycottnestle.blogspot.com/2008/07/nestle-driving-standards-down.html

We campaigned in support of stronger regulations in South Africa, which have still not been finalised. We joined with partners in successfully defending Brazil's strong regulations - an important victory, but one that stops us moving backwards, rather than gaining anything extra. Such is the nature of some of our work, something that is difficult to raise funds for.http://boycottnestle.blogspot.com/2008/11/another-victory.html

Nestlé used a variety of other strategies to try to divert criticism of its practices. In March it launched a report with the UN Global Compact office. This is an unmonitored and unenforced scheme introduced by Kofi Anan, when Secretary General of the UN, as an alternative to regulatory systems. Nestlé uses it for Public Relations purposes, the report it produced having important omissions and factual inaccuracies.http://boycottnestle.blogspot.com/2008/03/shared-value-exposed.html

Campaigners in Switzerland embarked on legal action against Nestlé after it was revealed that Nestlé had hired someone to pass off as an activist to infiltrate the group to gather sensitive and confidential information. The spy's reports included information on the baby milk campaign. The spy was run by a former MI6 agent employed by Nestlé.http://boycottnestle.blogspot.com/2008/08/nestle-swiss-spy.html

For International Nestlé-Free Week in October, a new website was launched as a portal to information from experts concerned about Nestlé practices. Nestlé lawyers threatened Baby Milk Action with legal action over the site and demanded the domain name be handed to Nestlé just days before the launch. We refused, concerned at Nestlé's history of 'passing off' as activists to gain sensitive information and suspicious of what it may put on the site. The launch went ahead as the Nestlé Critics website.http://boycottnestle.blogspot.com/2008/10/nestle-free-week-launch.html

Nestlé also continued with its efforts to break into the UK formula market, recruiting Dr. Miriam Stoppard, alongside Nestlé cheerleader, midwife Chris Sidgwick. Trading Standards confirmed that a Nestlé video Chris Sidgwick launched for midwives was being distributed in breach of regulations.http://boycottnestle.blogspot.com/2008/09/nestle-breastfeeding-video.html

It was a 'reporting year' at the World Health Assembly - every two years the Director General makes a report on progress in implementing the marketing requirements. This only looks at government action on legislation, not company's responsibility to abide by the requirements independently of government action. That aspect of monitoring has to be done by us with our partners in the International Baby Food Action Network (IBFAN). We attended the Assembly and called for renewed enforcement action and other steps to address current concerns.http://boycottnestle.blogspot.com/2008/06/wha6148.html

Towards the end of the year, the scandal of melamine contaminated formula in China emerged. We reminded people how Fonterra/Sanlu, the company at the centre of the scandal, had been pushing formula for years in breach of marketing standards. We analysed claim and counter claim regarding levels of contamination and showed that Nestlé's claim that its milk products were unaffected was untrue, as one was on the contaminated list, though at lower levels than the Sanlu products.http://boycottnestle.blogspot.com/2008/12/cashing-in-melamine.html

The year of 2009 began with yet another emergency, this time in Gaza, where formula has been sent by well-meaning, but ill-informed, people. This puts lives at risk, as I reported in March with information on a UN meeting on infant feeding in emergencies. We put out similar warnings in response to disasters in Burma and China.http://boycottnestle.blogspot.com/2008/03/formula-donations-diarrhoea.html

This is just some of the things going on in 2008.

For Baby Milk Action it was a particularly difficult year as we had to cut staff hours even further. For me this means that, while trying to do as much as I can unpaid, I do sometimes have to take on freelance work to make ends meet. Hopefully the situation will improve - we live in hope - but it may be in 2009 this is not quite a daily blog. Apologies for that.

Click to add this widget!

Receive emails of new posts

Breastfeeding calendar 2012

IBFAN's famous breastfeeding calendar is now available at reduced price. With 12 full-colour A4 breastfeeding pictures from around the world. View them in our on-line Virtual Shop and order today!

.

Infant Formula Explained

Independent, accurate information on infant formula from the Baby Feeding Law Group. Produced by Baby Milk Action and MarkIt Television. Suitable for use in UNICEF Baby Friendly certified health facilities. Click here to view clips and order.

ONE MILLION CAMPAIGN

Petition calling on political leaders to act on their promises to protect, promote and support breastfeeding

Push this site up the Stumbled upon listings

Books

How we can use human rights arguments to defend the right to food. With a chapter by Mike Brady on holding corporations to account (with Nestlé as a case study) and by Dr. Arun Gupta on breastfeeding.

Donations wanted

It is very difficult - and time consuming - to find funding for our UK work. If you are wealthy and want to help, please consider making a big donation. Use this button to pay by credit card, PayPal or cheque (cheques cost us less to process). Read more here.

Donations of any size can be made via the donation page on our website.

Newsfeeds

You can download this widget or add it to your website or blog to keep updated from Baby Milk Action newsfeeds: this blog, the weekly podcast and the website (use the arrows at the top to move between them)

Comments on the Virtual Shop

Now you can leave and read comments about items in our Virtual Shop.

Is this blog useful? Can you make a donation?

Thanks for reading! Can you make a donation from time to time to support Baby Milk Action's work? Just click the button to donate using our secure server. The only advertising you will find on this blog is for our materials.